


Eternal Beloved

by RS317



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Completely AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 16:11:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12088605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RS317/pseuds/RS317
Summary: The End is near and Victoria pens a letter expressing her true feelings.Totally and completely AU.





	Eternal Beloved

How grave?" Victoria asked.

"His doctors have informed us that he may not last over long." 

"What is overlong?" she asked her Prime Minister irritably. 

Sir Robert Peel replied glumly, "A week, 2 perhaps. No more than that." Victoria felt the blood drain from her face and was glad to be standing next to a chair which she reached out for with a shaky hand. 

"Can he communicate?" 

"Yes, but he is very weak and bedridden. My understanding is that he can no longer write and barely speaks. But, he has his faculties about him." 

"You may leave, Sir Robert," Victoria said quietly. 

As Sir Robert retreated, she stopped him. "Sir Robert? Thank you for bringing me this news. I would not have known otherwise." 

The Prime Minister nodded his head and continued his departure. Victoria walked to the nearest window and looked out blindly. She could not see for all the unshed tears pooling in her eyes. Her shoulders shook as she let out a sob. Her dear Lord M was but a shadow of himself now and she was not with him. Had not been with him for years.

She saw her reflection in the window and for a moment thought her beloved Lord M's figure was standing behind her. But it was just her imagination. Her vivid imagination had served her well enough over the years. But today? Today, she imagined Lord M lying frail in his bed at Brocket Hall. Alone and perhaps imagining himself unloved. 

She must write to him. He could not die without knowing. She would not let him die without him knowing the truth of her feelings. She had always wanted to pour out how she truly felt to him in her letters but had never found the courage. Until now when it might be too late. 

She called for Skerett to summon Lady Harriet Sutherland to her immediately. When Harriet arrived, she found a distraught Victoria. 

"Your Majesty!" Harriet cried as she rushed towards her friend. 

"Oh, Harriet! The most awful of news arrived today. My dearest Lord M does not have long to live. I cannot let him, I cannot - ". Victoria could not continue for her sobbing. 

After a minute or two, she regained her composure and continued. "I cannot let him die without telling him the truth of my feelings." Victoria let out a whoosh of breath. She looked at Harriet fearfully, wondering what her friend would think of her. 

"Ma'am, I have always understood that Lord Melbourne holds a tender place in your heart. And I have always known how deeply Lord Melbourne feels for you. May I speak frankly?" 

"Yes, of course," Victoria answered. 

"I would dare to say that Lord Melbourne has always loved you as a man loves a woman." 

"Harriet!" Victoria looked stricken. 

"It is true, Your Majesty. He followed your every movement when he thought no one was watching. On the day of your wedding, Emma found him pinching the bridge of his nose as he stood in the hallway where he'd said his farewells to you. He was holding back tears as he told Emma that he no longer needed his heart for you had stolen a large part of it from him when he first became your Prime Minister. The rest, he says, he gave to you as he kissed your hands for the last time at Brocket Hall when you gave him the mechanical singing bird." 

"He did not tell me. He told me long ago he still loved his dead wife," Victoria said dully.

"It is what he wanted you to believe. He thought it was his duty."

Victoria let out a heaving gulp of emotion. "I cannot bear it, Harriet. My Lord M lays dying while I prepare for our Christmas holiday!" 

"He would not find fault in that, Your Majesty." 

Victoria wiped her tears, nodding in acknowledgement and told Harriet, "I have a favor to ask of you, Harriet. Would you give me a few hours and return to me here?" 

"Anything, Your Majesty." 

Two hours later, Harriet returned to Victoria's chambers.

"Please take this letter and deliver it to Lord Melbourne. It is a deeply intimate revelation to Lord Melbourne but in the event that he is unable to read it for himself, I am entrusting you to be his eyes and to keep the contents sacred. Do you understand, Harriet?" 

Harriet understood the Queen's meaning and vowed to keep her confidence. 

Victoria kissed the seal and placed the letter in Harriet's hands. 

Harriet's carriage was accompanied by the Queen's own guards. Upon her arrival at Brocket Hall, she was led immediately to Melbourne's private chambers. 

Harriet was shocked by the frailty of the former Prime Minister. He lay in elegant bedclothes and wore a robe quite worn the color of persimmons. Despite his much changed appearance, it was evident that Melbourne had been a handsome man. 

As she hesitantly approached, Melbourne's eyes flew open. Harriet jumped back, startled, but his familiar raspy voice drew her in. 

"Harriet...you are as lovely as always," he said with obvious effort. 

"My Lord, and you are your always charming self," she smiled. 

He looked at her conveying with his eyes that he had not the energy to speak. She drew a chair to his bedside and sat. 

"I come with a letter from Her Majesty. She has asked me to deliver it and if necessary, read it to you." 

She placed the sealed letter in his hands but he did not take it. However, his expressive eyes implored her to read it. Harriet carefully broke the seal and drew a deep breath as she prepared to read.

_My dearest Lord M -_

__

__

_I have just received word that your spirits have been low these last few weeks. I am unable to visit you at Brocket Hall but I hope in due time, we will see each other again soon._

_Until that time, I feel - No, I know that I must be forthright with regards to my feelings for you. When I last saw you after your first illness, I walked out of Brocket Hall and wept the entire journey back to London._

_You see, despite my marriage to Albert, the births of my children and the years that have since past, a part of my heart has always been yours. I hope you have remembered this from the day you told me about the rooks. There is an empty space in my heart because that part of me is with you._

_With every letter that has since arrived and every flower box that greeted me on my dressing table, that space inside my heart has fluttered for you._

_I know and I understand now why you rejected my proposal at Brocket Hall._

_It was painful to think that you might not have loved me but I know it is precisely because of your love for me that you sacrificed our happiness together._

_I have a confession, Lord M. I have been unfaithful to my marriage vows. Not in a physical sense but in my mind and in my dreams. I have thought of you holding my bare hands and stroking them as you did near the rooks. I have thought of how strong your embrace would be. I have longed for your lips to be pressed to mine._

_I blush at revealing these thoughts to you, Lord M, but there is more. I have dreamed our bodies were intertwined and united in the most intimate of ways. I have heard in my mind our cries of passion._

_I have bared my soul to you in this letter in a way I have never done with anyone else, not even Albert._

_You must be reading this and thinking what a silly girl I am to hang on to such thoughts - ,"_

Harriet paused, curtsied towards a figure at the door and hurriedly walked out of the room. 

Melbourne suddenly became alert and opened his eyes. His hands trembled and reached out. 

"...but you, Lord M, were my first love and in my soul, you will always be my eternal beloved."

The last two words were spoken in a trembling voice. 

"Ma'am," he breathed. 

"Dear Lord M...I am here," she whispered as she clasped his hands and rose on tiptoe to brush his cheek with her warm lips. 

A tear fell from his beautiful green eyes and rolled down his cheek onto the pillow. 

" You should not be here," Lord M rasped. 

"Shhh...I came incognito," she said with a hint of her old mirth. 

He gave the semblance of a crooked smile remembering her incognito visits from years past. He was suddenly self-conscious of his appearance.

"I am old and ugly. My end near," he said slowly. 

"Lord M, you are as handsome as the day you came to me at Kensington," she said as cheerfully as she could while brushed her fingertips across his forehead. 

In that moment, they looked into each other's eyes and saw each other as they had the night of the first ball they were both in attendance for. 

"I want to dance with you," she said with great emotion. 

"Tonight, Ma'am..and always in my dreams," he said clearly.

She gulped down a sob as she realized the enormity of what he'd said. He had dreamed of her as well. 

For the next several hours, Victoria sat next to her most loyal subject and beloved of all men, holding his hands, stroking his cheek, patting his chest and recounting many of their past conversations and memories together.

As night turned to morning, he took her hands and struggled to bring them to his lips. 

"A final kiss," he whispered. 

But Victoria stayed his hands, stood and reached up to him to place a chaste and gentle kiss on his lips. 

"You were my rook, Ma'am," he sighed as he placed his hand on her head. 

She lay her head on his chest and felt his fingers flutter over her head. Too soon, Victoria felt his last gentle breath and heard the final beat of his heart. She sobbed against his still chest. 

She had been his rook after all. 

\- The End. -


End file.
